Independent and experienced viewpoints on technology, network services and support, social media, usability, trends, and insights for associations and nonprofit organizations.

Usability

October 26, 2011

“Select form of payment.”[press Credit]“Swipe your credit card and follow the instructions on the keypad.”[swipe credit card][press Credit on the menu][press Cancel][press OK when asked if the amount is correct]And so on…

At grocery stores, pharmacies, and other retail locations this scene plays out all day every day. This is a process most of us know so well we do it without any hesitation or confusion. However, it IS confusing. It ISN’T usable. Once you indicate your type of payment, why are you being brought through a process that requires you to indicate it again and then press Cancel? Cancel isn’t a word that leads a user to feel they are getting closer to completing their task, it is just the opposite. It leads a user to believe they are going to have to start again. Still, we press the Cancel button. Why? Because we’ve learned the system through using it enough times that we excuse its absurd violation of the standard (and pretty much only) definition of the word "cancel."

As we look at websites during usability testing projects we see website users make the same type of jumps. They understand the nuances in the search results, registration, or profile setup so they excuse the poor user experience because the value of completing the task is greater than giving up or making a fuss about the speed bump in their process. That’s not good enough. You should strive to delight your users with a good user experience. Test your member registration/renewal, event registration, community profile completion, and search functions to see what your users see. There’s much more to test than that, but these heavily used functions are worth testing if you do nothing else. Don’t expect your users to excuse your Cancel button whatever that may be.

October 08, 2010

What portion of your website traffic begins when a user follows the results of a search on Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc? Keep in mind you need to ensure your content strategy includes matching search results with landing pages. It isn't nice (or a good example of usability) to provide links that don't lead to where the user expects them to lead. Take the following example of how Edmunds has failed in this respect.

Search on "safest cars" and you'll see these results.

What do you expect when you click on the Edmunds link? A list of the safest cars? What you get is the following.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing on this page that lists the Top 10 Safest cars. I looked at the navigation and main content areas but found nothing.

Do some searches on your organization's content topics and see if the search results and landing pages match up.

September 09, 2010

Please - test the 'contact us' form on your website. This screen-shot is from TweetDeck's page designed to submit an issue to the technical support team. I filled the form out once and when I submitted it I was presented with this screen. I am already having problems, the last thing a website should do is create more confusion and frustration when I try to report a problem. As you can see, the form tells me that I am already registered in the help desk ("in" the help desk?) so I should login. The problem is there is no login facility. I am using HootSuite now which is a shame because I like TweetDeck more.

Your website might not have a form for submitting a technical support request, but it does have some type of contact us form no doubt - please test it and make sure it doesn't annoy your users.

August 17, 2010

When I talk about usability I often use www.peapod.com as an example of a well organized site that allows users to complete their tasks the way THEY want to complete their tasks – not the way the organization (in this case Giant Food) wants them to complete their tasks. Peapod is an extension of a large grocery store chain – Giant Foods in the Washington DC area - that allows users to setup a grocery order for delivery to their home. The reason I use Peapod as an example in usability talks is because they understand how their users think. Or rather how their uses think in many different ways. On the Peapod site you can “shop” using the traditional grocery store metaphor and shop by aisle, or you can shop by category, specials, brands, health value, past orders, etc. When I use Peapod, I often start with the Specials category and look for what’s on sale before looking at past orders. I suspect many other users follow a similar pattern. Today when I was at Giant, I noticed there is a new aisle - a “Bargains” aisle. Giant is moving all of its best bargains to one aisle regardless of what type of merchandise it is. I wonder if Giant used the buyer behavior data from the Peapod site to influence its store layout – coming full circle since the first version of Peapod’s site was focused on mimicking the traditional physical layout of a grocery store.

March 01, 2010

A few days ago, I received an email that contained a strange abbreviation: em's.

Now, I have a significant communications and design background. So, to me, "em" is the letter M. Or maybe it's short for the em dash, the longest of all the dashes and so named because, in the days of actual typesetting, it was the width of the letter M.

But, it finally dawned on me. Em's, in this case, was short for "emails" (or, maybe, "email messages"). That's right, the contraction of a six-letter word down to four characters caused notable confusion. Two characters saved = hours spent wondering about the intended meaning. The sender probably thought a couple of moments were saved by shortening the word. But the result was confusion, because I didn’t get it.

Imagine if this instance were about a more critical topic, like … a space shuttle launch … a medical issue … or even a member inquiry. The import of such an abbreviation could increase enormously.

The whole incident got me thinking about efficiency. Or, perhaps more correctly, what we perceive as efficiency.

On February 18, NPR’s All
Things Considered featured an interview with an efficiency expert (a happy coincidence for me as I craft this post!). At the end of a long workday, it provided me with one of those memorable NPR driveway moments.

For an efficiency expert like interview subject Matt LeBlanc (no, not Joey), finding quicker, better, improved ways of doing things becomes a way of life. For example, putting the sweetener and creamer in your cup before adding the coffee. Or relocating the printer to shorten your trips back and forth. Or organizing your toiletries according to the five-S method.

And even though efficiency is about saving time, money, and effort, it's not about shortcuts. Not the unnecessary kind, anyway. No em's.

Most of us are so busy (or so we say) that we sometimes slip into unnecessary and confusing shortcuts. We're spoiled by AOL speak. We rely too heavily on jargon that is meaningless to external audiences, customers, and members. We place greater importance on our own time or wit than on communicating clearly.

With a Master's in strategic communications and leadership, I am well aware of the crucial link between communications and leadership. Good communication is a critical component of good leadership. If you shortcut communications, you shortchange leadership. And nothing about that is efficient.

January 26, 2010

In a consultancy firm, you can't throw a rock without hitting someone who is a massive reader. At DelCor we have the library of professional books for browsing and a library of books for pleasure reading. Mostly, though, we all read our own literature varying from journals to blogs to the latest business management book on the market. There is a good reason for this...we are expected to be informed and knowledgeable in many areas and that means constantly educating ourselves along the way.

One great book that more than one consultant has suggested our clients read is titled, "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug. The book is all about making it easy for someone to do what they need to do for your website or program. I had to purchase this book on my Kindle after my boss, Jam Master Dave Coriale, suggested it during a meeting.

Although the principle seems simple, if you have ever been through a website redesign or tried to put together any kind of program, you soon realize how easy it is to forget the mission of simplicity. Ultimately, you want your audience to be able to act on your call to action.

Recently, I received an email asking for me to donate to the Annual Fund for Reasearch & Innovation from ASAE & The Center - a worthy cause and one I have given to previously. The message included a call to action: "Invest in Your Future Today!" and I was curious to see if they had made it easier to give than in previous years.

But when I looked for a link to the page for online donations, I found that it wasn't included. I then contacted ASAE & the Center staff to let them know they might want to resend with a link...because I really love ASAE & the Center and want to see them get the donations they are looking for.

My message is this: Make it easy. No matter how talented your staff and no matter how much you look at something, mistakes can still happen... but if you are constantly looking for ways to simplify a process for your members, you will end up with a much greater return.

UPDATE: ASAE contacted me to say within MINUTES of my posting this to say they had corrected this oversight and they even thanked me for the suggestion! Super FAST response. I'll have to blog about awesome customer service and quality monitoring next time! :) You can donate here: http://bit.ly/87mCBA.

November 18, 2009

I am not one for gadgets (yea, right) but I am loving my Motorola Droid so far. I recently switched from my HTC 6800, which was affectionately known as “The Brick” around here at DelCor and am very happy I did. Here is the quick list of why I am so delighted with the new phone:

The screen: the resolution is much better and it’s bigger. That makes reading easier.

Wake up on movement: Like my HTC, my Droid goes dark when I am holding it up to my ear on a call (I am the only person I know that doesn’t have a Bluetooth ear ornament), but when I move the phone away from my ear, the screen “wakes up” so I can press hang up, or a number on the keypad, or speaker phone, etc… On my HTC, I had to hunt for the ‘on’ button on the side to wake up the phone.

Function accessibility: When using it as a phone, the functions I most likely want to use are on the screen. The keypad, mute, speaker phone, and hang up buttons are all accessible without first opening up a menu.

The keypad: Again, when using it as a phone, the keypad is always available. The keys are large and each number’s corresponding letters are labeled so if you’re in a phone tree spelling a name, you don’t have to guess where a letter is.

Feedback: When pressing a number on the phone keypad or a button on the touch screen, the phone gives you a very slight vibration letting you know you’ve pressed the key. This is extremely helpful.

Browser: It’s a real browser. Also, when you’re in a data entry field, it zooms in on the field so you can see what you’re typing more clearly.

Camera: It takes pictures and movies as well as a standard digital camera. My HTC photos looked like photos you took on a phone.

Apps: There are plenty already available.

Keyboards: There are three of them - two virtual and one slide out. All three have been awesome.

Password view: I’ve turned on the option to see the last letter typed as I type any passwords. For example, if I am on the fourth letter of the password Snoopy, the screen shows ***o until I type the next letter. Then it shows ****p. This is very helpful as you make your way through the password – particularly if you have to look up for a moment.

Apps: Did I mention apps?

….Droid….: When I receive a text message, the phone says, “Droid” in a “Terminatoresque” voice. Who wouldn’t love that?

These may seem like small features, but they are significantly helpful. Keep in mind that I’ve only had the phone for two days so I am sure there are other functions and features I will like. I should also comment that the voice quality on calls has been excellent and the battery has lasted two days without being recharged. Is it an iPhone competitor? Yes, it is.

By the way - what makes this phone so great? My favorite subject - usability. A great deal of user experience design went into this phone's engineering. Excellent job Motorola.

October 08, 2009

Worried about your content 'below the fold? Well stop it! Here's another great article that again supports my rants that it's not an issue by debunking the myth of the page fold with actual user testing. I've been saying for years that users will scroll IF they think the content or function they are looking for might be down the page AND there is some visual cue that there is something further down the page. With respect to the latter, make sure you don't have white space that lines up with the 'fold' at the common screen resolutions.

April 30, 2009

Naturally, we are monitoring the H1N1 Flu situation. I find the Center for Disease Control a good source of facts and information so I visited their Web site earlier today. The H1N1 page is current and seems to change quickly so I thought I would subscribe to the e-mail updates. The problem is you can't tell if you're subscribing to updates from their entire site, or just the page you are on when you click "Get e-mail updates." I certainly didn't want to subscribe to all updates on the CDC site so I backed out of the subscription. I am positive that if this "task" was part of a usability test, the CDC would have changed the text on the subscription page in order to give users more confidence about what they are doing. As the page is now, you simply can't tell if you're subscribing to all updates or just updates on one particular page. How clear is your subscription page text?

April 23, 2009

To the newspaper industry, the web has been the silent killer, sending print sales the way of 8-tracks and VHS. Why should readers pay for information they can get for free? Are there not more convenient ways to get news? Is the print newspaper not useful anymore? These are the questions editors have been struggling to answer.

But what if you could turn this trend around for the news industry? What if through redesigning and rethinking the user experience you could actually increase the readership and revenue of your paper?

This would be nice right? You’re probably thinking that you are facing some of the same issues with your website and association online experience.

Well, an architect from Poland may have the answer. Jacek Utko, an architect turned art director, has been able to reverse trends, increase readership, create value in the user experience, and increase revenue for five newspapers in the former Soviet Bloc. Some of his advice is certainly applicable if you’re thinking of changing how your association presents itself online.

Let’s apply some of Mr. Utko’s logic to your web presence. Your website is more than just content; it must be well designed and carefully crafted. You have seconds to get the attention of new users. Here are two lessons we can take from his work.

1.) Make your website your identity, it is your "front page." Is your website memorable or not? Are your users faced with too much text or clutter when they first reach your site? No matter what your association does or who they represent, a visually appealing, easy to maneuver, and well-designed home page is critical to ensure that visitors stay and members remain engaged.

2.) It’s not only about the homepage though. The website needs to be treated as one body of work, as Mr. Utko compared it to a piece of music. You have to look at your site and ask, is there logic to how things are arranged, how easy is it to navigate from one item to another, is there a flow? Treat your website like a magazine or a portfolio of photographs; you need to have a flow from one page or section to another.

-----“The design was just part of the process; the changes we made were not about just changing the look but changing the function completely”

Mr. Utko used the function:form logic and changed it to content:design. He asked himself each time they needed to make a decision on the layout and design: “Why do we do it, and what is the goal?” He first adjusted the content to answer the question at hand, and after two months began the re-design to fit the new mission of the content. Ask yourself, why do we have this content here, what is our goal? If you don’t know why you have this content or can’t figure out a goal behind it, get rid of it. If you can, clearly articulate it, implement it. Do this for your entire site. Then build a design that fits all of these needs you have articulated. Never design before you’ve justified and given a purpose for the content which you will have on the site. Put that content on the site as much as possible before the new site begins to be designed. This will help you gauge its effectiveness for your members and save wasted time later when you need to eliminate or change the design around a change in content.

One of the measures Mr. Utko used to benchmark his success in the newspaper industry was subscription sales and readership. While you probably don’t have subscriptions to your association website, user traffic is the equivalent of your subscription and readership levels. Leverage the power of Google Analytics or to measure how your content and redesign is working. Google Analytics has a wonderful tool called the Website Optimizer which allows you to test different content with web users and measure their interest and time on your website. Use this data to make your revisions and find the perfect fit between your content and your design. As a website you have the ability to receive instant feedback to your work and move to make changes much quicker than a print publication could.

I see many similarities behind newspapers and association websites. Somewhat pedestrian and plain looking, both newspapers and websites are often only referenced only when needed and rarely are compelling enough to drive traffic outside of this. As in both cases the information the newspaper and association website provide can many times be found elsewhere in a better format. You can change this; there is no reason that it has to be this way. Your website is likely the most important and public facing statement your association can make about itself, take time to ensure that statement was worthy of your mission?